Monday, April 1, 2013

Momentary ice not so momentary

On today's flight I started picking up light to moderate rime ice pretty quickly, I hit momentary on the windshield ice to get her a squirt to get it clear, but when I released the switch it kept streaming out. Doh, no matter where I put the switch it wouldn't stop and I used up all my fluid in a matter of a few minutes. Luckily I climbed 2k feet and got on top and eventually it sublimated away, but obviously something I need to get fixed!

Oh well, another squawk to deal with!

My flying club finally decided to do some avionics work on our Cessna's so I flew our 172 up to Sac to get that done. It had been some time since I've flown a 172, so despite my 95 kt landing speed and endless float, not to mention the sunrise launch, I had some fun with it...

While I was there I talked to the shop about updating the GTN's in my Baron. When we went to pickup the plane, I went ahead and had them do the software update. The difference is amazing, it's like the units have been updated with a faster processor, everything is more snappy. The frequency buttons change quicker, and the backfill render is at least 2x faster. More importantly, I now get geo referenced charts, woot!